It’s August 20th, a day I will never live (or so I hope). Currently I am on a plane (or maybe in Australia or New Zealand) on my honeymoon! I say I hope because our flight was scheduled to depart minutes before midnight. Hopefully, we got out while it was still August 19th, landed safely on August 21 in Sydney, made our connection and are in New Zealand.
Since I am high in the sky, I decided to finish my wedding recaps with my favorite details from our wedding. So, yes this is a really narcissistic post where I’ll pin every picture to pinterest later (PS: when I asked Jay for the right word (narcissistic) he asked if I was talking about him again…).
Met, Engaged, Married: I originally saw this idea on Julie’s blog and knew I had to have it at our wedding. Since Jay and I met at school and are from two different states, I thought this would be a nice visual to our guests about our history together. Conveniently, it also made a great post wedding apartment decoration.
Finger Print Tree: Finger print trees are all the rage on pinterest and etsy these days. My MOH Val, who is also an art teacher, graciously agreed to make mine for me. I love that I now have a piece of her artwork in my home.
Favors: I borrowed our favor idea from a wedding we attended last fall. The bride simply put labels (printed with the guests name and table number) on bags of red jelly beans. I knew this was the way to go for our wedding since I don’t want to have to deal with writing out all the names. I took their idea and make it ours by attaching self printed business cards to Benne Wafers (a Charleston favorite). For our Northern guests, we added a little history of the Benne Wafer.
Family Wedding Photos: Another hot item in the wedding industry are family wedding photos. Our friends Hilary and Paul had one at their wedding last May and I loved it. I knew we had to replicate it at our wedding.
Chalkboard Signs: Back in February, one of my bridesmaids, Charlotte, came to visit her family. She took a day out of her trip to spend some time with me. Besides girl talk and shopping, we also went to Michael's to buy the makings for my chalkboard signs. We bought a wooden mosaic tile frame, silver paint, black chalkboard paint, a chalk pen and chalk. I painted the signs and she wrote on them the weekend of my bachelorette party.
Cake and Topper: The Elkridge Furnace Inn made our cake exactly how we wanted it. The cake topper was my grandparents, who just celebrated 70 years of marriage.
Flowers: I loved my flowers, which is ironic considering I originally didn't even want to hire a florist. I think I have probably said this about every vendor, but our florist, Christine, was worth every penny. She captured what I wanted perfectly but also made my wedding unique from my inspiration.
Mr. Right and Mrs. Always Right: This is another pinterest inspired idea. The original pin I saw had pretty large burlap banners on each chair. I loved the wording, not the look. Instead I made mine with a 1 1/2 inch circle punch and green, blue and gray cardstock. I simply typed the text out in a word document and printed it on my cardstock. Since I used a handheld punch, it was pretty easy to ensure each letter was centered. I did do a couple test rounds on printer paper to ensure the letters were far enough and the correct size. I strung the banner together with twine. I used this same method for a “Thank You!” and “Cards” signs for our birdcages.
"Reserved" and "Just Married" Signs: I also made "Reserved" signs for the ceremony chairs for family and a "Just Married" for our car. I used Martha Stewarts banner template and an extra large punch (about 3 inches). Like the banners above, I used green, blue and gray cardstock and strung them together with twine. My brother's wife and other brother's girlfriend helped our former roommate Mary decorate our car just before the ceremony.
L-O-V-E Blocks: My bridesmaid Charlotte also made the "L-O-V-E" blocks for me. On the opposite side she put my new married name.
Burlap Banner: As you can tell from above my bridesmaid and college friend, Charlotte, is very crafty. She kept an eye on my wedding pinterest board and made a few things from it. One of which being our burlap banner. One side of the banner says "Jack & Sarah" and the other side, our wedding sate "June 17 2012".
Koozies: Our koozies were another pinterest idea that came to fruition. We used the company Get Imprint and choose their "Promotional Collapsible Can Cooler". The link to our design was still active when I wrote this post, so feel free to personalize it. The greatest thing about koozies is they dramatically decrease in price as you order more. We had 150 guests, but I ordered 250 koozies because it was actually cheaper. It was so nice to be able to leave some home and not worry about not getting some for ourselves. The down side is now both my mom and I have at least 20 koozies each. If you ever come over for dinner, don't be surprised if you leave with a favor ;).
"Thank You" Sign: I saw the template for our "Thank You" sign just weeks before the wedding on Wedding Chicks. Their template is pretty simple, you just choose your colors, enter the names and dates and that's it. The template is meant for Thank You Cards but made a great little sign to sit out with our Koozies. I just printed it at Costco as a 5X7 and framed it.
*** photos courtesy of Dani Leigh Photography***
